City Consolidates Homeless Subsidies

This week the city simplified its rental assistance programs to help reduce record homelessness.

Landlords have been reluctant to accept vouchers from the seven different rental subsidy programs. The city has now streamlined them into one more accessible program — in the hopes that this will help move people out of the shelter system.

Mitchell Posilkin, general counsel at the Rent Stabilization Association, which represents property owners, says many landlords still remember being left with thousands of tenants who couldn't pay rent after the state and city eliminated a similar program in 2011. Because of that, he says this subsidy consolidation won't be a game changer — but it can’t hurt.

“It probably makes more sense to get rid of all of these different programs and put them under one label," he said. 

Currently, more than 60,000 people live in city shelters.